Sean Lee: 2017 Artist in Residence

Sean Lee: 2017 Curator in Residence

A portrait of a queer disabled Asian man speaking on a microphone. His eyes are focused on something beyond the camera and he is gesturing as he speaks. His hair is an asymmetrical blunt bowlcut and he is dressed in a black dress. Behind him, a large pink and orange gradient screen is projected to the wall with multiple silver spheres dotted on the image. The number 44 and a mouse can also be seen.

Sean Lee is a part of a new generation of artists, curators and arts leaders bringing fresh perspectives to the contemporary art field. An artist working in performance art and performance for the camera, his creative practice has evolved to fit the realities of navigating performance using the body as a medium, and the inevitable conclusions drawn surrounding his identity as a queer, Asian and disabled artist.

Culminating this curatorial residency, Lee will develop a unique catalogue focused on the 2017 summer project – MIXER – produced by Creative Users in partnership with Tangled Art + Disability at Tangled Art Gallery. The catalogue highlights five disability identified artists within Toronto’s Black, Indigenous, and people of colour communities who were part of the experimental collaborative process within MIXER.

“When I was given the opportunity to shape a curatorial-residency, my first thought was that I needed to create a catalogue to document the incredible work that is currently being produced at Tangled. For me, MIXER is the perfect place to begin for the ways it highlights the gap in which the narrative of disability has often been presented in a silo. We must remember that it is when we explore the complexities of our lived experiences that we can truly imagine a space that enables us to feel we belong and are represented.”
– Sean Lee

This curatorial residency is made possible with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council’s Access and Career Development program.